Mumbai: The Antop Hill police has arrested six parents who allegedly used fake proofs of their annual income and their childrens’ birth certificates, to avail of free education under the Right to Education (RTE) Act in a Sion school.
Under the RTE Act, no fee is required from Classes One to Eight, if the annual income of a child’s parent is below Rs 1 lakh per annum.
The police has also arrested two agents who allegedly aided the parents in committing the fraud. The incident took place at Sion’s CBM School.
The arrested accused parents have been identified as Imran Sayyed (32), Farzana (29), Mumtaz (37), Saiyeen (40), Jarrena (37) and Rabiya (26).
The arrested agents have been identified as Kamaruddin Shaikh (37) and Yunus Baza (42).
All arrested accused are residents of Dharavi.
Sion’s CBM School’s principal Rebecca Shinde said, “Our school received 27 applications to acquire admissions under the RTE Act. On March 18, while verifying the submitted documents, we suspected there were a few forms, which had the logo on birth certificates with a different colour.”
“Also, the forms in question had attached the birth certificates that were all issued a day earlier,” she added.
“After further verification, we asked the parents to show some other proof verifying the date of birth that was mentioned in the submitted birth certificate. When the parents failed to justify the documents, we acquired the original birth certificates from the Municipal Corporation, which showed the child’s real birth date,” Ms Shinde further said.
The principal said according to the RTE Act, 25 per cent quota in schools is reserved for children whose parents’ income is below Rs 1,00,000 per annum and who are below six years of age.
The children who fulfil the mentioned requirements are eligible to get free education till Class Eight.
Nasir Abdul Shaikh, senior police inspector of Antop Hill police station, confirmed the news and said that the arrested accused would be remanded in police custody till Monday.
